GREAT BLUE HERON
PR

The great blue heron, on the alert for a careless fish swimming by, is a statuesque and beautiful bird. On the wing, however, he becomes a flying Icabod Crane with long neck hunched back between his shoulders.

This stately bird is the largest of the American herons and one of the most beautiful. He is fifty inches long with a wingspread of twenty inches and has a rapier-like beak six and a quarter inches long. This weapon is deadly against fish, snakes, frogs, grasshoppers and other small animals. The long legged fisherman makes his strike from either a standing position or a slow, deliberate stalk and delivers it with blinding speeds.

The great blue heron's general color is slate-blue with a white crown and throat. The breast is streaked black and white and the legs and feet are black.

The large heron is a solitary bird except during breeding season. At this time, he joins with other herons to form colonies, generally deep in a swamp. Here they build huge nests, high in the branches of deciduous trees. Some colonies have dozens of nests where three to six bluish-green eggs are laid; if undisturbed, the birds return to the same locality year after year. Like pigeons and doves, young herons are fed by regurgitation.

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